Threaded Identity in Cyberspace: Weblogs & Positioning in the Dialogical Self
2004; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 4; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1207/s1532706xid0404_2
ISSN1532-706X
Autores Tópico(s)Digital Communication and Language
ResumoThe rapid emergence of Internet-based personal Weblogs ("blogs") reflects specific technological innovations and new online practices with broad affinity for the self as dialogical. This article employs qualitative analyses of the structural components and selected postings from a spectrum of 20 English-language blogs. Weblogs display multiple and shifting positionings in the form of ongoing, personally meaningful, and hypertextually threaded themes. A Jamesian (1890) "stream of thought" quality characterizes many blog entries when read chronologically. However, the active posting of contradictory or competing personal viewpoints reflects the polyphonic qualities of the dialogical self suggested by Bakhtin's (1929/1973) analysis of authorship. As such, blogs serve as explicit examples of Hermans's (2001) systematic model of the multivoiced self's active encounter with social and cultural others. The sequencing of commentaries in some Weblogs illustrates processes of cultural exchange by which authors thread pathways through overlapping but somewhat different positionings in processes of negotiating new or changing identities.
Referência(s)